The First Time All Over Again
by K Hanna Korossy
Summary: Wendigo tag: It's been a long time since someone took care of Dean.


**The First Time All Over Again**  
K Hanna Korossy**  
**

It was really weird, someone else driving the Impala.

Dean remembered clearly the last time that had happened, after a vampire nearly broke his arm, wrenching it so badly that even Dad had looked worried. He'd insisted on driving then, and Dean hadn't argued. Not that he often argued with his father, but even his stoicism had its limits.

He didn't feel so bad now, although he couldn't quite get his bruised and battered body comfortable no matter which way he turned. But Sam had announced he was driving and Dean hadn't argued with him, either. Things were still new enough between them, Dean didn't want to argue about the unimportant things. Push too hard and Sam might go back to Stanford or, worse, hit the road on his own looking for Jessica's—and their mom's—killer. Without Dean there to watch his back, and that was not acceptable. So he'd tossed Sam the keys, tried not to wince at the motion, and got in the passenger side, only to shift around uncomfortably ever since.

Sam glanced at him for probably the fiftieth time, and Dean tried to stop fidgeting. Sleep would have been good, although it didn't feel like he could relax enough for it, and then he'd probably start dreaming like Sam. That was the last thing they needed. Cases didn't usually get to him, but being dragged off and strung up by a cannibalistic wendigo…that just might do it. Even his subconscious wasn't that blasé.

Dean sighed, leaned his head back against the seat back, and earned himself another worried glance from Sam.

"We should stop at the next motel and get some sleep."

Dean tilted his head just enough to see his brother. "I'm fine."

"Yeah, well, I'm not. Neither of us slept last night and we need some rest."

"I can—"

"You're not driving," Sam said flatly.

Dean's lips thinned. He hadn't liked Dad telling him what to do, and liked it even less from his little brother. But this was worry and fatigue talking, and he could make allowances for that. "All right, but for the record, I'm only doing this for you."

Sam's mouth twitched. "So noted."

The next exit was another ten miles or so, and Sam took it. Dean didn't even look at the name of the town; they blurred together after a while. At least it had a motel from a chain he'd heard of, and Dean felt silent relief as they pulled up into the nearly empty parking lot. He wouldn't have admitted it to Sam but he was glad to be stopping. The chill and movement of the car hadn't done his aches any good, and his head throbbed especially viciously. Sleep in a real bed, even with nightmares, sounded as close to heaven as he was likely to get.

Sam checked them in and Dean hefted his own bag with a glare that made it clear he wasn't an invalid. Sam had the grace to look sheepish as he collected his own stuff and led the way into the room.

Dean dropped his bag onto the nearest bed and looked at the bathroom longingly. "Go on," Sam said from behind him, and this time he didn't resist his brother's pampering because Dean was dying for a shower. He went.

Peeling off his clothes took more energy than he'd expected, and a few moments of held breath as bruises and pulled muscles complained. He was used to those, but his clothes stuck to the blood on his wrists and there was a deep pain in his side that spoke of internal bruising. Dean moved slowly without anyone there to keep up appearances for. He hissed as he stepped under the spray of warm water, then leaned wearily against one arm as he let the memory of the wendigo wash off him.

He must've started to doze in the warmth because the next thing he knew, he was stumbling forward, nearly clocking his chin on the soap tray. Cursing under his breath, Dean washed up wherever it didn't hurt too much to do so, gave his hair a cursory shampoo, then climbed out on stiff legs.

Sam had been there in the meantime without his hearing a thing, a fact that chagrined Dean. But he smiled even as he shook his head at the roll of gauze, tape, and antiseptic cream that was laid out neatly by the sink, along with the shorts and a t-shirt Dean had forgotten to bring in with him. Apparently Sammy—Sam—had forgotten which of them was the older brother again.

Dean dressed carefully, cleaned and wrapped his wrists, and changed the wet bandages. Giving the gaunt face in the mirror a wince, he braced himself and walked back out to the intent scrutiny he knew was waiting.

Sam was reading Dad's journal, and glanced up as Dean came out. "How's it look?"

Dean shrugged with his eyebrows. "Few bruises, no big deal. We've both had worse."

Sam snorted. "Yeah, I guess I forgot that part. You know, I actually went whole months at Stanford without getting knocked out or clawed or thrown against a wall."

"Sounds boring," Dean said, shoving dirty clothes into his bag. They could wait until they reached an actual town with a laundromat.

"Sounds…normal," Sam said softly.

Dean pretended he didn't hear. There was nothing to say to that, and the return of the worry that Sam would leave wedged a lump in his throat, anyway. Sam didn't seem to feel the rightness of their being on the road together, the thrill of the hunt, the enjoyment of doing it with family. He was still slipping away from Dean as surely as first school, and now those nightmares, pulled him away.

Dean didn't look up as Sam headed into the bathroom, just zipped up his bag and crawled gingerly into bed, allowing himself a groan in the empty room. Sleep was actually starting to look more like wishful thinking than reality, but it still beat the Impala's front seat, and Dean willed his bruised body to relax.

Sam padded out after a while, thinking Dean was asleep and trying to be quiet, and Dean didn't set him straight. His brother shut the blinds and curtains, fiddled with the thermostat, and then just stood there beside Dean's bed for so long that curiosity nearly got the better of him and made him open his eyes. But he didn't, and a minute later he heard Sam climb into bed, and, soon after, his breathing evened out into the sleep he needed almost as badly as Dean.

Dean hoped the nightmares wouldn't come at least this night.

He lay still, listening to Sam sleep, remembering doing the same thing when they'd been kids. His headache had dimmed to tolerable levels and he dozed, time skipping whenever he cracked an eye to look at the alarm clock. Half-asleep, he turned onto his stomach, the way he usually slept.

Ow. Bad idea. Muscles pulled and strained, stabbing him with what felt like a hundred needles in his abdomen and back and down his shoulders. Dean bit back a groan, breath hitching as he tried to roll back into the position he'd been before and succeeded only in making things worse.

"What's wrong?"

Sam's voice, not as sleepy as he'd have expected, startled him. "Nothing," Dean said gruffly, before realizing silence would have been a better answer. "Go back to sleep."

Instead, he could see the shape that was his brother lift up on one elbow. "It's not nothing if you're hurt."

Dean cursed, annoyed at the weakness of his body and at little brothers who didn't mind their own business. "I've been knocked around lots of times when you weren't here and I'm gonna be lots of times after you're gone, Sam. I can take care of myself."

This time, Sam surprised him by muttering something Dean didn't even think he knew, and reaching for his discarded jeans on the nearby chair. Dean forgot the pain for a minute as he watched Sam dress in jerky, angry motions, feeling a lump gather in his gut.

"Where're you goin'?" He was scared now, and still it came out as anger.

"Out," Sam said tersely, and, yanking his sneakers on, stomped out of the room, shutting the door behind him.

Dean flopped back on the bed, eyes wincing shut. He felt sick, and it wasn't just because he was in pain. He knew Sam would get tired of being back on the road and would eventually give it up, drift back to the "normal" life he'd made for himself. Dean just hadn't thought it would be so soon, or when he was moving too slowly to follow and try to talk him out of it. Or that he himself would be the one to inadvertently push Sam into it. He'd been trying to protect his kid brother, and instead…

No, that wasn't quite the truth. Sam wasn't keeping his dreams to himself because he was trying to protect Dean, either. The fact was that four years was a lot of time in which to form new habits and become different people. Add to that distance, and the trust that had broken when Sam had left for school, and even their being brothers and reuniting didn't automatically restore everything, no matter how much Dean might've secretly hoped.

And he _had_ hoped.

Funny how they could trust each other with their lives, but everything else was asking too much. Yeah, he was laughing hard over that one.

Dean slammed a fist down on the mattress, the bounce reverberating through him. That hadn't meant he didn't want to try, he just thought they'd have more time. But then, that was one of the curses of their family, wasn't it? Always thinking they had more time?

With painful slowness, he rolled onto his side, then pushed himself up. He had no idea where Sam was going in this no-horse town, but his brother was stubborn enough to hitch if he had to, and Dean wasn't going to just lie there and let him do it. One more thing Sam had probably forgotten about him those last few years: his stubbornness.

Or maybe it was the other way around.

The door opened behind him. Even as Dean struggled to grab his knife and see who it was, his brother's soft voice said, "It's me."

Dean curled his fingers around the edge of the mattress to anchor himself and wiped the relief off his face as Sam came around the bed, steps just a little hesitant.

"They have a store and restaurant downstairs—I brought you some stuff." Sam sat down on the bed across from him, and Dean noticed he had a brown bag in his hands. He watched silently, guardedly, as Sam pulled from it another bag, then a small box of heat packs and a new bottle of Advil. He'd used up the one in the kit back in Stanford, and Dean had forgotten to restock it.

Sam silently fetched him a glass of water and dumped a pair of the pills into his hand, waiting until Dean took them before opening the second bag.

"I remember you like burgers…" And he couldn't remember much else, his body language said, but its awkwardness had the opposite effect on Dean, easing the tension that sang through him. He accepted the bag as Sam shrugged. "I wasn't sure how you liked it so I had them put a lot of everything on."

Dean couldn't help cracking a smile at that. "Sounds good."

Sam nodded.

They shared an equally silent meal, Sam eating some kind of sandwich while apparently fascinated with the pattern of the carpet, Dean pretending not to watch him. He couldn't help it, though, wondering why Sam had come back, for how long, and if he'd ever regain the ability to read his brother like he had before Sam had decided Dean's life wasn't for him.

The burger was good, settling his rocky stomach. Dean started to rise to throw his trash away, and stopped at a stern look from Sam. "Lie down."

"Sam, I'm—"

The sigh interrupted him again. "Just do it."

He made a face but obeyed, it taking him about as long to get horizontal as it did Sam to clean up all traces of their meal. Then Sam picked up the heat packs.

"Where is it worst?"

Dean watched him, seeing his little brother underneath the stranger if he looked hard enough. The brother he used to let his guard down around, an almost-forgotten instinct that went even deeper than the self-protective ones he lived by these days. How was Sam supposed to trust him enough to talk about his nightmares if Dean didn't trust him back? "Kidneys," he finally admitted, and wondered if Sam's intent gaze would have picked up on the truth even if Dean hadn't shared it.

"Where else?" His brother's voice had softened.

"Right shoulder, maybe. Kidneys are the worst."

Sam nodded, read the package silently for a moment, then opened a pack and pulled the adhesive off. He lifted Dean's shirt before he could protest, face tightening at the sight of the deep purple bruises, then stuck the pad gently in place, followed by another on Dean's shoulder. Then he pulled the blankets back over him, and sat down on his own bed facing Dean's, hands hanging limply between his legs.

Here came the talk. Dean braced himself for it.

"You remember that llama thing?"

Okay, not what he was expecting. Dean blinked. "What?"

Sam's eyes showed a moment of amusement. "The llama creature, I think it was in Nevada. You wanted to tame and ride it, until it attacked me."

Dean bunched the pillow under his head to raise himself a little higher so he could look Sam in the eye, but he stared past him now. "Yeah, well, I couldn't keep something that would bite everybody it came across." His eyes tracked back to Sam. "There're laws against that, little brother."

"You killed it because it attacked _me_," Sam quietly corrected him.

And he was right, but Dean made a face. "Twenty-three stitches, Sam—that thing was possessed."

His brother's expression said, _Not the point_, but Sam let him have it. "You remember what you told me that night when you were changing the gauze on the bites?"

Dean frowned. "That was, like, fifteen years ago. I barely remember the llama."

"You said that was what brothers do, they look after each other."

So apparently they were having a talk, after all. "Sam…" Dean sighed.

His brother laughed. "There was also that rabbit familiar that _really_liked you. I thought we'd have to get a room for you two."

Dean groaned. "Hey, I thought we weren't going to talk about that anymore."

"No, Dad said I should leave you alone about it. I never agreed."

"Fine." Dean nodded sagely. "Then how about the time that ghost scared you in the bathroom and you ran out without your—"

"Dean!"

He grinned. "Goes both ways, dude."

Sam shook his head, then looked up at him through that fringe of too-long hair. "I get it now."

"What?" Dean asked, suddenly wary again.

"Hailey. Why you let her go with us. The whole 'her brother's missing' thing." Sam's head dipped to one side, distracting from what he was saying, because they could say everything else except the important stuff.

Dean looked at him hard, then slowly nodded. He had been disappointed Sam hadn't understood Hailey's determination to find her brother, but obviously Dean wasn't the only one still adjusting to recent changes. His most pressing question had been answered, anyway: maybe Sam would leave at some point, go back to that normal life, but not yet, not soon. And he didn't look ready to explode anymore, either, so…apparently they did have more time.

Dean leaned back on his pillow, and decided he knew how to read his brother better than he'd thought he did. "You remember the clown in that sorry roadshow? The one we thought was a demon because we'd just read _It_and the guy looked like Pennywise?"

"Any clown would have looked like Pennywise then," Sam said with a smile, and shook his head. "It's a good thing Dad was there to stop us from going after it."

"Yeah…" He hitched his chin toward his brother. "We're gonna find him, Sam."

"I know." Sam stood. "But first we need to get some sleep or neither of us is gonna be up for driving tomorrow. Do you need anything else?"

The heat packs were just starting to get pleasantly warm and the drugs were kicking in. Dean meant it this time when he shook his head. "Naw, I'm fine. Thanks."

Again that unnervingly perceptive look. "Would you tell me if you weren't?"

"Scout's honor." Dean held up two fingers, then with a grin, just one.

Sam rolled his eyes. "Like the Boy Scouts would've taken you." But he seemed satisfied by the answer and undressed, climbing back into his bed. Trusting Dean would tell him if he needed him.

Just like Dean was trusting him to stay.

He could live with that. Dean eased over onto his stomach, and watched Sam through half-open eyes as his brother gave him a last look, then turned off the light.

"Good-night."

Dad had never wished him that. Dean had never missed it.

He would after this. When…if…but not now.

"G'night, Sam."

They still had time.

**The End**


End file.
